Pepper, a New York City native who was born in 1924 currently spends her time between there and Todi, Italy, has been making sculpture since the 1960s — though she briefly took up Land art in the mid-70s. She was one of the first contemporary artists to start making monumental works out of Cor-Ten steel. “Normanno Wedge I” was originally installed in Top Gallant Farm, the late art dealer André Emmerich’s private sculpture park on his 140-acre property in upstate New York. That park closed in 1996, though DIA had already acquired the sculpture in 1991.

The wedge shape has been a recurring motif in Pepper’s work for decades, especially in works installed outdoors and in urban settings — in the summer 2005 another of her Cot-Ten steel sculptures, “Horizontal Wedge,” was installed on Park Avenue in New York City.

“I believe my work offers a place for reflection and contemplative thought within the context of active urban environments,” Pepper told the Calgary City News in 2010 on the occasion of the unveiling of a series of sculptures in the Canadian city. A similar series of works, “The Manhattan Sentinels,” was installed in Manhattan’s Federal Plaza in 1996.

Watch a 1979 episode of the TV show “Inside New York’s Art World” with Beverly Pepper and Sarah Faunce: